The Last Goodbye Chapter 7: Leave Right Now, a glee fanfic

LEAVE RIGHT NOW - WILL YOUNG

I'm here just like I said
Though its breaking every rule I've ever made
My racing heart is just the same
Why make it strong to break it once again?

And I'd love to say I do
Give everything to you
But I can never now be true
So I say...

I think I'd better leave right now
Before I fall any deeper
I think I'd better leave right now
Feeling weaker and weaker
Somebody better show me how
Before I fall any deeper
I think I'd better leave right now

I'm here so please explain
Why you're opening up a healing wound again
I'm a little more careful
Perhaps it shows
But if I lose the highs, at least I'm spared the lows

Now I tremble in your arms
What could be the harm
To feel my spirit calm
So I say..

I wouldn't know how to say
How good it feels seeing you today
I see you've got your smile back
Like you say your right on track
But you may never know why
Once bitten twice is shy
If I'm proud perhaps I should explain
I couldn't bear to lose you again

Yes I will...

Chapter Six

She shouldn't have come here…

She should have just stayed perfectly at home and caught up on sleep instead of using her only rest day in weeks to open up old wounds and remember things that she wish she could have just forgotten…

Taking a deep breath to calm her frazzled nerves, Rachel sat alone on the backyard swing of the shared Hudson-Hummel home as she thought back to the events of the evening…

The moment that Kurt got this harebrained idea of throwing her a welcome home party, she already had a dark sense of foreboding …

Though it was a delight to hear about Brittany's engagement to Artie and she was ecstatic to see Tina pregnant with hers and Mikes first child, it was still really hard to be around Finn in the same room most especially around friends who shared with them the best and happiest years of their lives and who knew almost their entire history…

Sure, she might have laughed and smiled and she's sure that she even nodded to Noah's stories in all the right places, but there was not one minute during the night when she was not aware of the looks Finn threw her from underneath his lashes or of the way that he turn his head to look at her whenever Mercedes recalls an anecdote of a shared memory of everything that they were and everything that they used to be together…

This entire thing was a fucking timebomb…

A minefield of feelings and emotions that she's now having a hard time suppressing and she just needed to get away from it all, otherwise she would have just broken down and shattered into a million pieces…

Hugging her arms around herself as if to ward off the chill of the autumn breeze blowing in the cool Ohio night, Rachel closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the hard wood of the swings headrest…

She just needs a moment of peace and quiet…

A moment alone to collect herself without being bombarded with thoughts and images of Finn and their past and without feeling as if she would throw herself at him at any given moment…

She stayed that way for a couple of minutes…Her mind blank and her heart aching before she felt the swing move and she turned and stare at Finn who was now sitting beside her…

She wonders why despite the fact that she wanted to get away from it all, she was not surprised at all that he's there and instead there was a satisfaction in her heart that he followed her …

She's perplexed why unlike before, she doesn't feel the need to run away or be angry as she watched him cradle his beer in his large hands as he sit next to her awkwardly and stared straight ahead blankly…

Perhaps it was the way that Kurt shared how Finn got himself drunk and cried himself to sleep the moment he knew she left or of how Santana sarcastically mentioned that people thought he was really Frankenstein because he just went to school in a daze…

Perhaps it was the knowledge that he also hurt just as much as she did and of how perhaps he did love her even if it was not as much and despite the fact that maybe, it was just a teeny weeny bit…

"I'm sorry…"

Finn whispered and Rachel looked at him with a confused expression on her face…

He gave her a lopsided smile… That smile that was so HIM before he turned his head and pointed through the transparent sliding doors at their friends who are now taking turns singing and dancing drunkenly…

"For this…"

He sighed…

"For putting you on the spot… I know they can be kind of tactless sometimes…"

He rolled his eyes exasperatedly and Rachel shrugged… A small, sad smile playing on her lips as she looked at all those people inside tenderly…

"It's okay… It's not your fault and it doesn't matter…

She said softly…

"I missed them…"

She lifted her eyes to meet his…

I missed you…

And despite the fact that the words remained unspoken, there was a look of understanding that passed between them…

It was as if they were transported back in time and they were back to being sixteen…

Back to that time when they were full of dreams and hopes and of each other that it was kinda funny how after all this time, somehow that part of them is still present even if she is now who she is and she's kinda unsure about the kind of man that he has become…

Finn turned to look at her before suddenly leaning closer… his hands cupping her face and his thumb brushing against her cheek while Rachel sat perfectly still, her heart pounding…

"You-you have something there…"

He said awkwardly…

His voice was thick with desire as he looked at her upturned face while he thinks of dead animals and hit and run mailmen…

Anything… just so he can quell the sudden need he had to hold her close and plant his lips against hers…

"Why did you choose Quinn?"

The quiet words just came out of Rachel's mouth without thinking…

Finn's thumb froze against her cheek as she uttered the words like it had just came to her at the spur of the moment and like she had not been thinking about it ever since that fateful day when they last saw each other…

Her voice was full of the pain that she had repressed for the longest time as she once again begged the boy in front of her for answers even if she promised that she would never lower her pride again just for his sake and that perhaps it's better if her questions remain unanswered …

Finn looks at her… his hands still pressed against her cheek as he stared at her with eyes that are full of things that he wanted to tell her…

Like how sorry he is for hurting her and how he's regretting his decisions…

How his feelings for Quinn can not even compare to the depth of his feelings for her and how he wished they are still together and of how much he wish he is now in Jesse's place…

Instead he just smiled sadly…

"It… it just happened… there's no excuse for it…"

He removed his hands from her face before staring off into the distance…

A tacit silence passing between them before he turned to look at Rachel again with sad eyes…

"If only I could undo it, I would… I guess I was just an asshole after all…"

A thoughtful pause enveloped the two of them as Rachel pried her gaze away from his sincere eyes… both of them quiet as they stare once more into the distance…

"Welcome home Rach… I'm glad you're here…"

He said in a whisper…

Her heart gave a little squeeze and she nodded slowly before turning her head to look at him one more time…

"How- How have you been?"

She asked for the first time and he gave a surprised start at the question and the curiosity and tenderness in her voice before giving out a weak chuckle…

"Alright I guess… for someone who made a decision that fucked up his life majorly…"

A pregnant pause greeted that sentence… Rachel not knowing how to respond to it as Finn gave a sad smile that didn't quite reach his eyes…

There was still an agonizing air about them as if they have just met for the first time…

A stilted pause punctuating their conversation as they relearn to speak with each other from the heart as they slowly let their guards down…

"Jesse and you seem to be getting along well…"

Rachel smiled back… once again feeling guilt overcome her though deep inside she knows that there is no reason for her to feel that way…

"Ummm…"

She nodded…

"I'm still jealous as hell but if you're happy with him I just hope you won't let him break your heart like I did…"

And the humorless laugh and the self condemn that he had in his voice almost broke her…

Rachel turned to look at Finn, swallowing the lump against her throat as he took a swig from his beer bottle as if getting all the strength he could get with the help of some liquid courage…

"I love you … "

The words came from out of the blue… surprising her and making her freeze as he finally said the word that she was waiting from him again eight years ago…

"I always imagined that you'd always be there and that I'd have the chance to tell you but I blew it… "

He gave a regretful smile…

"DAMMIT!"

He swore…

"I'm not saying this because of all that talk about the past inside or to get you back or to even gain your pity… I just wanted to tell you just because… You deserve to hear the truth… After all these years, you deserve it…"

There was a sincerity in his eyes that had never been there before and Rachel doesn't even know she's crying until she felt the wetness on her cheeks and until she tasted the saltiness on her lips…

Finn run his fingers through his hair frustratedly when he looked at her… He expelled a huge breath of air and raised his head heavenward as if not knowing what to do next or to even say…

"I'm sorry I was weak… I'm sorry I should have talked to you about it sooner… I'm sorry I wish I can undo what I did… I'm sorry I wish I knew words far stronger than this…"

She raised her hand to stifle a sob as she nodded slowly…

Thinking to herself how perhaps they're really not meant to be because otherwise, why is it that ever since they met there was always something there that always seem determined to forever keep them apart…

She cried for their lost love and the years they have wasted and for the hatred that she'd always kept for him inside her heart…

And at that very moment she knew…

That she had forgiven him and that no matter what, there is no use pretending she doesn't care because he'd always have a special place in her life…

The problem is she doesn't know if she can ever trust him again…

She lifted tear filled eyes to him… an unsure smile on her face as she shrugged…half laughing and half crying…

"What are we doing? This is a party and we're supposed to be happy and It's been years and it's so stupid and we should just move on and forget about -"

Grabbing her neck and muttering a muffled "shit" Rachel sat rigid with shock as Finn pressed his lips against hers and kissed her…

His lips were tender and coaxing, soft and yet demanding and weaving that familiar magic that captured her very soul that she felt nothing else mattered as everything else faded into the background…

Like the fact that Kurt and Mercedes and the others were probably looking at them and watching or that Jesse was in New York waiting…

Like the fear that she has of allowing herself to get too close to him again or even the warning bells ringing in her head about how in doing this she is almost officially as good as there…

At that moment there was only the feeling of his lips on hers and the way it moved against hers…

slowly…

softly…

but with a devilish passion unlike anything she had ever experienced…

Before long she was responding tenderly, her arms locking around Finn's neck as he gently wrapped his arms around her waist and as the kiss grew deeper and he pressed her more tightly against him, he gave out a guttural groan that brought her back to earth and made her aware of her surroundings…

With her cheeks flushed and her lips still swollen, Rachel pushed Finn away from her…

He still had his eyes closed and his mouth open…

A look of confusion dawning on his face as he slowly opened his eyes, completely at a loss of why she broke the kiss and aching at the sudden loss of her warmth beside him…

"I – I have to go-"

She whispered…

And Finn can do nothing but follow her with his eyes as she walked away…Lost in the memories that they shared and how he feels at that moment as he think to himself that perhaps no matter how hard he tries she has moved on and he can never have her back again…

He remembered when he left Glee just to keep his popularity and how she stood beside his locker urging him to come back and telling him that he shouldn't care because he is better than anyone else…

He remembers how she painstakingly prepared that picnic for him at the auditorium and how just being next to her is enough to set him on fire that he just had to have her lips…

He remembers Regionals where after that whole Jesse debacle he told her he loved her and she lit up in a smile as if he had just given her the entire universe…

He remembers The Only exception and his name on her necklace and cat calendars and banana bread and how he was her everything and how she always always make him feel and believe as if he's really worth something…

He remembers …

Because right now with the way things are going, it is everything of her that he has left and without that he might as well be left with NOTHING...